Systems and methods for generating smart responses for natural language queries

ABSTRACT

Methods and systems are described for responding to natural language queries. Specifically a natural language query is received and a query template that corresponds to the natural language query is determined. One or more search results corresponding to the natural language query are retrieved. One or more attributes associated with the user equipment device are identified and based on those attributes a first response template associated with an audio-only response to the natural language query, a second response template associated with a visual-only response to the natural language query, or a third response template associated with an audio-visual response to the natural language query is selected. A response to the natural language query is generated based on the selected response template and the retrieved one or more search results.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. provisional patentapplication No. 62/264,793, filed Dec. 8, 2015, which is herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

A number of systems are in existence today that provide responses tonatural language queries. These systems provide the same responses tothe same queries making the responses monotonous and machine-like. Forexample, if the user asks “What is the weather like,” current systemswill always respond the same way, for example, with the number ofdegrees and whether it may rain. These systems will not take intoaccount information such as time of day or desired output format (e.g.,audio, visual, or another suitable format).

SUMMARY

Therefore, it is desirable to provide, based on different circumstancesand different user equipment devices, different smart responses and/ordifferent types of smart responses to natural language queries.Specifically, providing different smart responses and/or different typesof smart responses under different circumstances may create a morehuman-like and less monotonic system.

In some aspects, systems and methods are described to provide for anatural language processing system that automatically generates anintelligent response to a natural language query based on one or moreattributes associated with a user. Specifically, the system may be, atleast partly implemented on a user equipment device that includes a userinput interface. The user input interface may be configured to receivethe natural language query. For example, the user input interface mayreceive the natural language query through a microphone or a keyboardassociated with the user equipment device. It should be noted that theuser input interface may be configured to receive the natural languagequery from any type of input device, including, but not limited to,mechanical motion devices, audio input devices, visual input devices,touch input devices, or other suitable input devices.

The user equipment device may also include control circuitry that may beconfigured to process the received natural language query in order togenerate a smart response. Specifically, the control circuitry may beconfigured to receive, from the user input interface the naturallanguage query. For example, the user input interface may receive thenatural language query in one of a number of formats (e.g., visual,audio, textual, or another suitable format). The user input interfacemay, upon receipt of the natural language query, process the query andconvert the query into a format that can be further processed by thecontrol circuitry (e.g., textual format).

In order to respond to the natural language query, the control circuitrymay need to match the received query to a query template that enablesthe control circuitry to determine which portions of the query are termsfor searching and which terms are part of a question/inquiry phrase(e.g., what, why, where, or another suitable term). The controlcircuitry may be configured to determine which query template of aplurality of query templates corresponds to the natural language query.For example, the received natural language query may be “Who is thedirector of “Titanic?” The control circuitry may determine that amatching template is “Who is” followed by variable data to be used ingenerating a response. Therefore, the control circuitry may search for“director of Titanic” with “Who is” being the question/inquiry phrase.

At this point, the control circuitry may execute a search to find ananswer or answers to the natural language query. Specifically, thecontrol circuitry may be configured to retrieve one or more searchresults corresponding to the natural language query. For example, asdescribed above, if the natural query template is “Who is” followed byvariable data, the control circuitry may perform a search based on thevariable data. Specifically, the control circuitry may execute a searchfor “director of Titanic.” The search may be a database search and/or anInternet search. It should be noted that any type of search engineeither a commercial search engine and/or a specialized search engine maybe used.

Additionally or optionally, the control circuitry may begin to determinehow to tailor the response to the user to make the system sound morehuman-like. Thus, the control circuitry may be configured to select,based on a selection criteria, one or more attributes of a plurality ofattributes associated with the user. For example, at different times ofthe day the user may prefer different lengths of response or differenttype of information. During the morning hours, the user may be in a rushand may prefer a short response, in the afternoon a longer response, andin the evening an even longer response. That preference may be stored bythe system. Thus, the control circuitry may select a short response as acriteria associated with the user.

In another example, the user equipment device may receive a questionfrom a user asking “What is the weather like?” The control circuitry maydetermine that the attributes associated with the user are the user'slocation and time of day. The control circuitry may further determinebased on the time of the day that the user wants a short response. Forexample, the control circuitry may determine that a shorter responsecorresponds to only the high and low temperature and whether there isforecasted rain or snow. However, if the user is asking the samequestion in the evening, the control circuitry may determine based onthe time of day and the user's location that the user wants a longresponse describing the weather for the evening and the next day.

The control circuitry may be configured to identify, based on the one ormore attributes, a response template of a plurality of responsetemplates previously assigned to the query template. For example, if thenatural language query is received in the morning and the user prefers ashort response in the morning, the control circuitry may compare all theavailable response templates and select one that is of a shortestlength. For example, if the received natural language query is, “Howlong until my train arrives,” the control circuitry may respond with“Five minutes” instead of a longer answer.

The control circuitry may be configured to generate the response to thenatural language query based on the identified response template and theretrieved one or more search results. As described above, if theresponse template is just a name and the search result is “JamesCameron,” the control circuitry may just generate a response “JamesCameron.”

In some embodiments, the plurality of attributes associated with theuser may include at least one of a plurality of characteristicsassociated with the user, a location of the user, a date associated withthe user's location, and a time of day associated with the user'slocation, or another suitable attribute. Other attributes may bedetermined from data associated with the user. For example, the otherattributes may include a current season of the year, whether a festivalis going to fall on a particular date, and other facts of the dayincluding past and future events that have happened or will happen on oraround the date. Furthermore, the derived attributes may includebirthdays associated with the user (e.g., the user's birthday orbirthdays of the user's family members, friends, or other persons). Thisinformation may be stored in the user's profile. This information may beentered into the user's profile manually or received from another source(e.g., user's calendar, user's contact list or contact lists, or anothersuitable source).

In some embodiments, these attributes may be aggregated. For example,the control circuitry may use multiple attributes, such the user's ageand a fact of the day, to select a response template. If the user is achild and it is the user's birthday, the control circuitry may respondin a child's voice and play the “Happy Birthday Song” in the background.In some embodiments, the attribute associated with the user may be theuser's gender. For example, male users may prefer a female's voice todeliver a response. In these instances, the control circuitry may selecta response template that uses a female voice to deliver a response.

In some embodiments, the attributes that are used by the controlcircuitry may be selected based on a respective weight associated witheach attribute. Specifically, the control circuitry is configured toselect, based on the selection criteria, one or more attributes of theplurality of attributes associated with the user. The control circuitrymay determine a weight associated with each attribute of the pluralityof attributes associated with the user and identify the one or moreattributes based on the weight associated with each attribute. Forexample, each attribute may be stored in a database. Together with eachattribute the database may include a weight associated with eachattribute. The weights may be determined by the manufacturer, or may beadjustable by a user or a third party. In some embodiments, the weightsmay be randomized so the same attribute or attributes are not alwaysselected.

In some embodiments, the weights of attributes may be modifiedautomatically when an attribute is selected in order to ensure that thesame attribute or attributes are not always selected. Specifically, thecontrol circuitry may be further configured to adjust a correspondingweight associated with an attribute in response to the attribute beingused to identify the response template. For example, if time of day isrepeatedly used to select a template the system may be more machine-likeand less human-like. Thus, using an attribute such as the user'slocation or the user's relative location (e.g., whether the user is atwork, at home, at a friend's home or at another suitable location) maymake the system more human-like.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry is configured to generate theresponse to the natural language query based on the identified responsetemplate and the retrieved one or more search results. The controlcircuitry may be configured to retrieve the identified attribute andperform a search based on the identified attribute and the one or moresearch results. Based on the search, the control circuitry may identifyinformation associated with both the identified attribute and the one ormore search results, and update the response to include the identifiedinformation. For example, if the identified attribute is location, andthe user is asking about the weather, the control circuitry may searchfor weather events (past and future) in the location and add thatinformation to the search. Thus, the control circuitry may return ananswer: “It is forty-five degrees. Did you know that last year a bigwinter storm came through here causing the whole city to shut down?”

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may select specificattributes for use in the selection criteria. Specifically, the controlcircuitry may be configured to select, based on the selection criteria,the one or more attributes of the plurality of attributes associatedwith the user. The control circuitry may determine a time of day in theuser's location, determine, based on the time of day, a relative lengthof response that the user prefers at the time of day, and add to the oneor more attributes the relative length of response that the userprefers. For example, if the control circuitry is receiving user inputin the evening, the control circuitry may select the response templatethat is the longest in delivering the response to the natural languagequery.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may select a responsetemplate based on the relative length of the response template to otherresponse templates. Specifically, the control circuitry is configured toidentify, based on the one or more attributes, the response template ofthe plurality of response templates previously assigned to the querytemplate. The control circuitry may select a response template based onthe length of response that the user prefers. As described in theexample above, if the user prefers short responses in the morning andlonger response as the day progresses, the control circuitry may respondwith just a single answer in the morning and longer answers as the daygoes by.

In some embodiments, the following method may be used to identify theresponse template. Specifically, the control circuitry may be configuredto identify, based on the one or more attributes, the response templatefrom the plurality of response templates that have previously beenassigned to the query template by retrieving, from a database, one ormore attributes associated with the response template, comparing the oneor more attributes associated with the response template with the one ormore attributes of the plurality of attributes associated with the user,and based on the comparison, identifying the response template. Forexample, each response template may be associated with one or moreattributes (e.g., length, format, or another suitable attribute). Thecontrol circuitry may compare those attributes with the user's preferredattributes (e.g., preference for a short response, preference for aspecific format, or another suitable attribute). The control circuitrymay select the response template that matches the most user attributes.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may retrieve multiple searchresults based on a search. However, some search results may bepreferable to the user. Thus, the control circuitry may select the morepreferable results to deliver to the user. Specifically, the controlcircuitry may determine that a plurality of search results correspondsto the natural language query, determine, based on the past naturallanguage queries received from the user, that one or more search resultsare preferable over other search results corresponding to the naturallanguage query. Based on that determination, the control circuitry maygenerate a response to the natural language query based on theidentified response template and the preferred one or more searchresults. For example, if the query is “When do the Yankees play,” thecontrol circuitry may determine that there are 20 Yankee games scheduledto be played in the next few months. However, the control circuitry maydetermine that the user prefers to know about one or two games that areto be played next. Thus, the control circuitry may generate a responsebased on the one or two games that are to be played next and not deliverthe times associated with other games found.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may be configured to generateresponse templates for received natural language query templates.Specifically, the control circuitry may be configured to receive aplurality of sample natural language queries and a correspondingplurality of sample responses, where each natural language querycorresponds to one or more sample responses. The control circuitry mayalso be configured to generate a plurality of sample query templatesbased on the plurality of sample natural language queries and generateone or more response templates for each sample query template based onthe one or more sample responses corresponding to the associated naturallanguage query. For example if the control circuitry receives “Whodirected Titanic,” as natural language query and sample responses “JamesCameron directed Titanic,” “Titanic,” and “James Cameron is the directorof Titanic,” the control circuitry may create three response templatesthat may be represented as <Result><Action><query data>, <Result>, and<Result> is <query data>.

In some aspects, systems and methods are described to provide for anatural language processing system that automatically generates anintelligent response to a natural language query based on one or moreattributes associated with a device that receives the query.Specifically, the system may be implemented on a user equipment devicethat includes a user input interface. The user input interface may beconfigured to receive the natural language query. For example, the userinput interface may receive the natural language query through amicrophone or a keyboard associated with the user equipment device. Itshould be noted that the user input interface may be configured toreceive the natural language query from any type of input device,including, but not limited to, mechanical motion devices, audio inputdevices, visual input devices, touch input devices, and other suitableinput devices.

The user equipment device may also include control circuitry that may beconfigured to process the received natural language query in order togenerate a smart response. Specifically, the control circuitry may beconfigured to receive, from the user input interface, the naturallanguage query. For example, the user input interface may receive thenatural language query in one of a number of formats (e.g., visual,audio, textual, or another suitable format). The user input interfacemay, upon receipt of the natural language query, process the query andconvert the query into a format that can be further processed by thecontrol circuitry (e.g., textual).

In order to respond to the natural language query, the control circuitrymay need to match the received query to a query template that enablesthe control circuitry to determine which portions of the query are termsfor searching and which terms are part of a question/inquiry phrase(e.g., what, why, where, or another suitable term). Thus, the controlcircuitry may be configured to determine which query template of aplurality of query templates corresponds to the natural language query.For example, the received natural language query may be “Who is thedirector of Titanic?” The control circuitry may determine that amatching template is “Who is” followed by variable data to be used ingenerating a response. Therefore, the control circuitry may search for“director of Titanic” with “Who is” being the question/inquiry phrase.

At this point, the control circuitry may execute a search to find ananswer or answers to the natural language query. Specifically, thecontrol circuitry may be configured to retrieve one or more searchresults corresponding to the natural language query. For example, asdescribed above, if the natural query template is “Who is” followed byvariable data, the control circuitry may perform a search based on thevariable data. Specifically, the control circuitry may execute a searchfor “director of Titanic.” The search may be a database search and/or anInternet search. It should be noted that any type of search engineeither a commercial search engine and/or a specialized search engine maybe used.

Additionally or optionally, the control circuitry may tailor theresponse to the user equipment device that received the natural languagequery. Specifically, the control circuitry may identify one or moreattributes associated with the user equipment device. For example, theuser equipment device may have connected speakers and a display screen.Thus, attributes of the device may include the ability to deliver audioresponses, video responses, and a mix of both.

Based on the identified attributes, the control circuitry may select anappropriate query template (e.g., audio-only, video-only, audio-visual).Specifically, the control circuitry may select, based on the one or moreattributes one of a first response template associated with anaudio-only response to the natural language query, a second responsetemplate associated with a visual-only response to the natural languagequery, and a third response template associated with an audio-visualresponse to the natural language query. It should be noted that thefirst second and third templates are assigned to the natural languagequery template at an earlier time. For example, if the user equipmentdevice that received the natural language query only has a speaker, butnot a display screen, the control circuitry may select an audio-onlyresponse template. If the user equipment device has both a displayscreen and a speaker, then the control circuitry may select anaudio-visual response template.

At this point, the control circuitry may generate the response to thenatural language query based on the selected response template and theretrieved one or more search results. For example, the control circuitryreceives a natural language query: “What action movies are playingtonight,” and the user equipment device has a speaker and a displayscreen, the control circuitry may generate an audio portion of theresponse “Here is a list of action movies playing tonight” and generatea visual portion of the response by generating for display a list ofaction movies that are playing that night.

In some embodiments the one or more attributes associated with the userequipment device may include a plurality of characteristics associatedwith the user equipment device, a location of the user equipment device,a date associated with the location of the user equipment device, anorientation of the user equipment device, a time of day associated withthe user equipment device, or another suitable attribute. For example,the orientation of the user equipment device may be used by the controlcircuitry to select a response template. Specifically, if the device isfacing in a direction that the user may not be able to see the displayscreen of the device, the control circuitry may select an audio-onlyresponse template.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may utilize the weightassociated with each attribute to identify the attributes to use inselecting a response template. Specifically, the control circuitry isconfigured to identify the one or more attributes associated with theuser equipment device. The control circuitry may be configured toretrieve a plurality of attributes associated with the user equipmentdevice, determine a weight associated with each attribute of theplurality of attributes associated with the user equipment device, andidentify the one or more attributes based on the weight associated witheach attribute of the plurality of attributes. For example, an attributeof the user equipment device may be the volume setting. Thus, if thevolume is set to a value that indicates that a response would not beaudible to a user, the control circuitry may use the volume attribute asthe highest weighted attribute and select a visual-only response.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may use application data toidentify attributes to use in selecting a response template.Specifically, the control circuitry is configured to identify the one ormore attributes associated with the user equipment device. The controlcircuitry may be configured to identify an application of the userequipment device that the user interacted with last and add theapplication to the one or more identified attributes. For example, ifthe last accessed application is a fitness application, the controlcircuitry may determine that the user is exercising and may not be ableto look at the display screen. Thus, the control circuitry may choose,based on the last application accessed, an audio-only response.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may be used to generatedifferent types of responses (e.g., visual-only, audio-only,audio-visual, or another suitable response type) from a received genericresponse template. Specifically, the control circuitry may receive ageneric response template associated with the natural language query anddetermine whether the generic response template may be converted into atleast one of an audio response template, a visual response template, anda mixed audio and visual response template. Based on determining thatthe generic response template can be converted into the audio responsetemplate, convert the generic response template into the first responsetemplate. Based on determining that the generic response template can beconverted into the visual response template, convert the genericresponse template into the second response template. And based ondetermining that the generic response template can be converted into anaudio-visual response template, convert the generic response templateinto the third response template.

For example, if the response template is “The following <genre> areplaying tonight” followed by a list of shows, the control circuitry maydetermine that this template may be converted into an audio-onlytemplate because the words can be delivered via audio. The controlcircuitry may be configured to convert the same template into avisual-only template because all the words may be generated for displayon a display screen. Likewise, the control circuitry may convert thistemplate into an audio-visual template where the list of shows may begenerated for display on a display screen and the rest of the responsemay be delivered via an audio channel (e.g., a speaker). However, if theresponse template calls for something to be displayed on the displayscreen (e.g., a request for a map) the control circuitry may not be ableto generate an audio-only response based on that response template.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may identify specificcomponents of the user equipment device and add indications of thosecomponents to the list of attributes based on which the responsetemplate is to be selected. Specifically, the control circuitry isconfigured to identify the one or more attributes associated with theuser equipment device. The control circuitry may be configured todetermine that the user equipment device is associated with a speakerand a display and based on the determining, add an indication associatedwith the speaker and an indication associated with the display to theone or more attributes. For example, if the user equipment deviceincludes a speaker and a display screen, the control circuitry mayinclude those components in the one or more attributes.

In some embodiments, the system may, based on an existence of a displayand a speaker, select an audio-visual response template. Specifically,the control circuitry is configured to select, based on the one or moreattributes, one of the first response template, the second responsetemplate, and the third response template. The control circuitry may beconfigured to select the third response template based on the userequipment device being associated with a speaker and a display. Forexample, if a response template calls for a list of results to bedelivered to a user, then the control circuitry may generate an audioportion describing the list and generate the list on a display screen.Specifically, the control circuitry may respond to a query of “whataction movies are playing tonight” by generating via an audio channel“Here is a list of action movies playing tonight,” and display the liston a display screen associated with the user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user preference may override an automaticselection of a response template. Specifically, the control circuitrymay be configured to identify a user that is associated with the naturallanguage query and determine whether the user prefers to receive one ofan audio-only response, a visual-only response, an audio-visualresponse, or another suitable response type from the user equipmentdevice. Based on the determining, override the one or more attributeswith the user's preference for the user equipment device. For example,the user may have a user equipment device in the kitchen that includes aspeaker and a display screen. However, the user may only want to receiveaudio responses from that user equipment device because the user neverlooks at the display screen on that user equipment device. Thus, thecontrol circuitry may receive and store a preference from the user thatonly audio responses are to be generated by that user equipment device.Therefore, the control circuitry may override the one or more attributeswith the user's preference.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry, based on determining thatthe attributes have been overridden by a user's preference, select aresponse template based on that preference. Specifically, the controlcircuitry is configured to identify, based on the one or moreattributes, the first response template, the second response template orthe third response template. The control circuitry may be configured toselect the first response template based on the user's preference forthe user equipment device. As in the example above, if the user prefersan audio-only response template, the control circuitry may select anaudio-only response template based on that preference.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may add the user equipmentdevice's orientation to the one or more attributes. Specifically, thecontrol circuitry is configured to identify the one or more attributesassociated with the user equipment device. The control circuitry maydetermine an orientation of the user equipment device and add theorientation of the user equipment device to the one or more attributes.For example, if the orientation of the user equipment device isvertical, the control circuitry may determine that it is in a user'spocket or a bag, where the user may not be able to see the displayscreen. Thus, the control circuitry may choose an audio-only responsetemplate based on that determination.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative embodiment of a display screen that may beused to receive a natural language query from a user, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 2 shows an illustrative embodiment of a display screen that may beused to provide a response to the natural language query based on anattribute associated with a user, in accordance with some embodiments ofthe disclosure;

FIG. 3 shows another illustrative embodiment of a display screen thatmay be used to provide a response to the natural language query based onan attribute associated with a user, in accordance with some embodimentsof the disclosure;

FIG. 4 shows yet another illustrative embodiment of a display screenthat may be used to provide a response to the natural language querybased on an attribute associated with a user, in accordance with someembodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 shows an illustrative embodiment of a display screen that may beused to receive a natural language query from a user, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 6 shows an illustrative embodiment of a display screen that may beused to provide a response to the natural language query based on anattribute associated with a user equipment device, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 7 shows an illustrative embodiment of a display screen that may beused to provide media guidance application listings, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 8 shows another illustrative embodiment of a display screen thatmay be used to provide media guidance application listings, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of an illustrative device in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 10 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 11 depicts an illustrative process for generating a response to anatural language query based on one or more user attributes, inaccordance with some embodiments of this disclosure;

FIG. 12 depicts an illustrative process for identifying a plurality ofresponse templates for a natural language query, in accordance with someembodiments of this disclosure; and

FIG. 13 depicts an illustrative process for identifying an attributeassociated with a user based on the weight associated with thatattribute, in accordance with some embodiments of this disclosure.

FIG. 14 depicts an illustrative process for identifying a responsetemplate of the shortest length, in accordance with some embodiments ofthis disclosure.

FIG. 15 depicts an illustrative process for generating a response to anatural language query based on one or more user equipment deviceattributes, in accordance with some embodiments of this disclosure;

FIG. 16 depicts an illustrative process for identifying componentsassociated with a user equipment device and adding indications ofspecific components to a set of attributes associated with the userequipment device, in accordance with some embodiments of thisdisclosure; and

FIG. 17 depicts an illustrative process for overriding the identifiedattributes with a user's preference for the user equipment device, inaccordance with some embodiments of this disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Systems and methods are provided herein for a natural languageprocessing system that automatically generates an intelligent responseto a natural language query based on one or more attributes associatedwith a user. Specifically, the generated intelligent responses wouldenable the system to be more human-like and less monotonous.

For example, a user may ask: “What is the weather like?” In response,the system may determine that it is currently 7:00 AM at the locationwhere the user is, and based on that determination, give the user basicweather information (e.g., number of degrees and whether it may rain orsnow). However, if the system determines that it is currently 7:00 PM atthe location where the user is, the system may respond with an extendedforecast (e.g., number of degrees now and in the morning, whether it israining now or will rain in the morning, or other suitable information).In some embodiments the system may generate for display to the user, anextended forecast, for example, for a week.

FIG. 1 illustrates a display screen that may be used to receive inputfrom a user of a natural language query. Display 100 of FIG. 1 mayinclude prompt 102 that indicates to a user that the user equipmentdevice is ready to receive the natural language query. Prompt 102 may begenerated for display as shown in FIG. 1. However, prompt 102 may begenerated for audio transmission through, for example, a speaker. Area104 may be used to display a textual representation of the user's input.User input may be received through microphone 106 and then, for example,transcoded into textual data exemplified in area 104.

FIG. 1 illustrates that the user equipment has received the naturallanguage query “Who directed Titanic.” In response, the controlcircuitry within the user equipment device may retrieve a naturallanguage query template, the answer to the natural language query, and anumber of response templates associated with the natural language querytemplate. Answers based on different response templates are illustratedin FIGS. 2-4. Display 200 of FIG. 2 illustrates one response templatethat may be used by the control circuitry in responding to the naturallanguage query. The user device of FIG. 2 may be the same device asillustrated in FIG. 1 and include a microphone 202. However, the displayscreen of the device may display response 204 ‘James Cameron directed“Titanic”,’ corresponding to the answer to the natural language queryusing one template.

Display 300 of FIG. 3 illustrates the same user equipment device, butdisplaying a response to the natural language query based on a differentresponse template. Microphone 304 is still present for further userinput and response 304 “James Cameron” is display to illustrate the useof a different response template. Display 400 of FIG. 4 illustrates thesame user equipment with the same microphone 402, albeit with response404 which is based on a different response template. As a result, thesystem is able to present different responses at different times andunder different circumstances in order to create a more human-likesystem.

In some embodiments, the system may select a response template based onattributes of the user equipment device. Display 500 of FIG. 5illustrates a system that enables a user to input (e.g., throughmicrophone 502) the natural language query. Specifically, prompt 504 maybe displayed on the display screen 500. Additionally or alternatively,prompt 504 may be output in an audio format through speaker 508. Display600 of FIG. 6 may represent the same user equipment device asillustrated in FIG. 5. Area 504 may include a textual representation ofa natural language query “Show me a list of action movies playingtonight.” The control circuitry of the user equipment device may convertany input received from microphone 502 into textual representationdisplayed. Display 600 of FIG. 6 may illustrate a display screen of thesame user equipment device as device of FIG. 51 Microphone 602 andspeaker 604 may represent the same component as in FIG. 5. However,display 600 may be displaying a list of action movies that are playingtonight and use speaker 604 to generate an audio portion of the response“The following action movies are playing tonight.”

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, chat sessions, social media,applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computerreadable media. Computer readable media includes any media capable ofstoring data. The computer readable media may be transitory, including,but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals,or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile andnon-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk,floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, register memory, processorcaches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

FIGS. 7-8 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 7-8 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While thedisplays of FIGS. 7-8 are illustrated as full screen displays, they mayalso be fully or partially overlaid over content being displayed. A usermay indicate a desire to access content information by selecting aselectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, alistings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicatedbutton (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user inputinterface or device. In response to the user's indication, the mediaguidance application may provide a display screen with media guidancedata organized in one of several ways, such as by time and channel in agrid, by time, by channel, by source, by content type, by category(e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories ofprogramming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organizationcriteria.

FIG. 7 shows illustrative grid of a program listings display 700arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 700 may include grid 702 with:(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 704, where eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 706, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid 702 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 708, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listing'sassociated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can selectprogram listings by moving highlight region 710. Information relating tothe program listing selected by highlight region 710 may be provided inprogram information region 712. Region 712 may include, for example, theprogram title, the program description, the time the program is provided(if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), theprogram's rating, and other desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L.P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 702 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 714, recorded content listing 716, andInternet content listing 718. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 700 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings714, 716, and 718 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 702 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 702. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 720. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 720.)

Display 700 may also include video region 722, and options region 726.Video region 722 may allow the user to view and/or preview programs thatare currently available, will be available, or were available to theuser. The content of video region 722 may correspond to, or beindependent from, one of the listings displayed in grid 702. Griddisplays including a video region are sometimes referred to aspicture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and their functionalitiesare described in greater detail in Satterfield et al. U.S. Pat. No.6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,239,794,issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated by reference hereinin their entireties. PIG displays may be included in other mediaguidance application display screens of the embodiments describedherein.

Options region 726 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 726 may be part of display 700 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 726 may concern features related to program listings in grid 702or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.allrovi.com, from other media guidanceapplications the user accesses, from other interactive applications theuser accesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.),and/or obtain information about the user from other sources that themedia guidance application may access. As a result, a user can beprovided with a unified guidance application experience across theuser's different user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 10. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 8. Video mosaic display 800 includes selectable options 802 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 800, television listings option 804 isselected, thus providing listings 806, 808, 810, and 812 as broadcastprogram listings. In display 800 the listings may provide graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listing 808 may include morethan one portion, including media portion 814 and text portion 816.Media portion 814 and/or text portion 816 may be selectable to viewcontent in full-screen or to view information related to the contentdisplayed in media portion 814 (e.g., to view listings for the channelthat the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 800 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 806 islarger than listings 808, 810, and 812), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 9 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 900. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 10.User equipment device 900 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 902. I/O path 902 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 904, which includesprocessing circuitry 906 and storage 908. Control circuitry 904 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 902. I/O path 902 may connect control circuitry 904 (andspecifically processing circuitry 906) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 9 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 904 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 906. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 904 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 908). Specifically, control circuitry 904 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 904 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 904 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 904 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 10). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 908 thatis part of control circuitry 904. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 908 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 10, may be used to supplementstorage 908 or instead of storage 908.

Control circuitry 904 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 904 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 900. Circuitry 904 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 908 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 900, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 908.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 904 using user inputinterface 910. User input interface 910 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 912 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 900. For example, display 912 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 910may be integrated with or combined with display 912. Display 912 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 912 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 912 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 912.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry904. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 904.Speakers 914 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 900 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 912 may be played throughspeakers 914. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers914.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone applicationwholly-implemented on user equipment device 900. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage908), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 904 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 908 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 904 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 910. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 910 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 900 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 900. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 904 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 904) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 900. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 900.Equipment device 900 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 910 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 900 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 910.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 900 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 904). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 904 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 904. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 904. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 900 of FIG. 9 can be implemented in system 1000 ofFIG. 10 as user television equipment 1002, user computer equipment 1004,wireless user communications device 1006, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 9 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 1002, user computer equipment 1004, or awireless user communications device 1006. For example, user televisionequipment 1002 may, like some user computer equipment 1004, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 1004 may, like some television equipment 1002,include a tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 1004, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 1006.

In system 1000, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 10 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 1002, user computer equipment 1004, wireless usercommunications device 1006) may be referred to as a “second screendevice.” For example, a second screen device may supplement contentpresented on a first user equipment device. The content presented on thesecond screen device may be any suitable content that supplements thecontent presented on the first device. In some embodiments, the secondscreen device provides an interface for adjusting settings and displaypreferences of the first device. In some embodiments, the second screendevice is configured for interacting with other second screen devices orfor interacting with a social network. The second screen device can belocated in the same room as the first device, a different room from thefirst device but in the same house or building, or in a differentbuilding from the first device.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.allrovi.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network1014. Namely, user television equipment 1002, user computer equipment1004, and wireless user communications device 1006 are coupled tocommunications network 1014 via communications paths 1008, 1010, and1012, respectively. Communications network 1014 may be one or morenetworks including the Internet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice ordata network (e.g., a 4G or LTE network), cable network, public switchedtelephone network, or other types of communications network orcombinations of communications networks. Paths 1008, 1010, and 1012 mayseparately or together include one or more communications paths, suchas, a satellite path, a fiber-optic path, a cable path, a path thatsupports Internet communications (e.g., IPTV), free-space connections(e.g., for broadcast or other wireless signals), or any other suitablewired or wireless communications path or combination of such paths. Path1012 is drawn with dotted lines to indicate that in the exemplaryembodiment shown in FIG. 10 it is a wireless path and paths 1008 and1010 are drawn as solid lines to indicate they are wired paths (althoughthese paths may be wireless paths, if desired). Communications with theuser equipment devices may be provided by one or more of thesecommunications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 10 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 1008, 1010, and 1012, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 1014.

System 1000 includes content source 1016 and media guidance data source1018 coupled to communications network 1014 via communication paths 1020and 1022, respectively. Paths 1020 and 1022 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 1008, 1010,and 1012. Communications with the content source 1016 and media guidancedata source 1018 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 10 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 1016 and media guidance data source 1018, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 10 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 1016 and media guidance data source 1018 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 1016 and 1018with user equipment devices 1002, 1004, and 1006 are shown as throughcommunications network 1014, in some embodiments, sources 1016 and 1018may communicate directly with user equipment devices 1002, 1004, and1006 via communication paths (not shown) such as those described abovein connection with paths 1008, 1010, and 1012.

Content source 1016 may include one or more types of contentdistribution equipment including a television distribution facility,cable system headend, satellite distribution facility, programmingsources (e.g., television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.),intermediate distribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers,on-demand media servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademarkowned by the National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademarkowned by the American Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademarkowned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Content source 1016 may be theoriginator of content (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcastprovider, etc.) or may not be the originator of content (e.g., anon-demand content provider, an Internet provider of content of broadcastprograms for downloading, etc.). Content source 1016 may include cablesources, satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 1016 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 1018 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 1018may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 1018 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 1018 mayprovide user equipment devices 1002, 1004, and 1006 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihooda given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, themedia guidance application may process the viewer data with thesubscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate accessto a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions that entice the user tokeep the particular service or source indicated by the score as one towhich the user will likely terminate access.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 908, and executedby control circuitry 904 of a user equipment device 900. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 904 of user equipment device 900and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 1018) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 1018), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 1018 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices1002, 1004, and 1006 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device.

Media guidance system 1000 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 10.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 1014.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. PatentPublication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 1016 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 1002 and user computer equipment 1004may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 1006 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 1014. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 1016 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 1018. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 1002, user computer equipment 1004, andwireless user communications device 1006. For example, the other userequipment devices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or astreamed video. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operatein a peer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 1004 or wireless usercommunications device 1006 having content capture feature.Alternatively, the user can first transfer the content to a userequipment device, such as user computer equipment 1004. The userequipment device storing the content uploads the content to the cloudusing a data transmission service on communications network 1014. Insome embodiments, the user equipment device itself is a cloud resource,and other user equipment devices can access the content directly fromthe user equipment device on which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 9.

As referred herein, the term “in response to” refers to initiated as aresult of. For example, a first action being performed in response to asecond action may include interstitial steps between the first actionand the second action. As referred herein, the term “directly inresponse to” refers to caused by. For example, a first action beingperformed directly in response to a second action may not includeinterstitial steps between the first action and the second action.

In some embodiments control circuitry 904 generates a response to anatural language query as described by process 1100 of FIG. 11. At step1102, the control circuitry receives, from a user input interface, anatural language query. As described above user input interface 910 maybe used to receive the natural language query. For example, a user inputinterface may include a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad,keyboard, touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voicerecognition interface, or another suitable device. The natural languagequery may then be transmitted from the user input interface to controlcircuitry 904 through an I/O path (e.g., I/O path 902).

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may be located on one deviceand a user input interface may be located on another device. Forexample, a user input interface may be located on a user equipmentdevice (e.g., user television equipment 1002, user equipment 1004, orwireless user communications device 1006), but the control circuitrythat processes the query may be located away from the user equipmentdevice (e.g., at media content source 1016, or media guidance datasource 1022). The user equipment device

At step 1104, control circuitry 904 determines which query template of aplurality of query templates corresponds to the natural language query.As referred to herein, the term “query template” refers to a generalizedtemplate for a specific type of query. For example, a basic querytemplate may be “Show me < . . . >,” where the dots represent what theuser wants to be shown. A more complete query template may be “Show me <. . . > directed by < . . . >. Thus, a natural language query “Show memovies directed by James Cameron will fit this query template. It shouldbe noted that these two query templates are used as examples and othermore complex query templates may be used by the system described.

Process 1200 of FIG. 12 is one illustration of how control circuitry 904may determine which query template of a plurality of query templatescorresponds to the natural language query. At step 1202, controlcircuitry 904 retrieves, from storage, (e.g., storage 908) a receivednatural language query. It should be noted that the control circuitrymay retrieve the natural language query from storage on a differentdevice. For example, the control circuitry that is retrieving the querymay reside on a user equipment device (e.g., user television equipment1008, user computer equipment 1004, or wireless user communicationsdevice 1006) and the query may be stored on a server (e.g., at mediacontent source 1016 and/or media guidance data source 1018). Thus, thecontrol circuitry may retrieve the natural language query from a remotelocation.

At step 1206, control circuitry 904 determine whether the naturallanguage query is in textual format. If the textual query is stored in afile, the control circuitry may determine the type of file based oneither content of the file or file extension. If the natural languagequery is not in textual format, at step 1204, control circuitry 904converts the natural language query into textual format. The controlcircuitry may perform the conversion using any available converter. Forexample, the natural language query may be in an audio format (e.g.,received from the user via a microphone). The control circuitry mayconvert the natural language query into a textual format. It should benoted that in some embodiments the natural language query may beconverted into a textual format at an earlier time and the conversionmay be performed by the user input interface (e.g., user input interface910).

At step 1208, control circuitry 904 parses the natural language queryinto a plurality of keywords. For example, the control circuitry mayparse the natural language query into words. Alternatively oradditionally the control circuitry may parse portions the naturallanguage query into known word combinations. For example, “directed by”would be one keyword for this purpose. Likewise, “show me” would be onekeyword. Thus, control circuitry may parse the natural language query“Show me movies directed by James Cameron” into terms “Show me,”“movies,” “directed by,” and “James Cameron.”

At step 1210, control circuitry 904 generates a database search querybased on the plurality of keywords. The control circuitry may firstdetermine what kind of a database it is communicating with and thenbased on that use an appropriate connection protocol and query language.However, the query may include all or some of the keywords. At step1212, control circuitry 904 searches a query template database using thedatabase search query. It should be noted that the database may belocated locally on the user equipment device (e.g., device 1002, 1004,or 1006) or remotely at media content source 1016 and/or media guidancedata source 1018.

At step 1214, control circuitry 904 determines whether any searchresults have been found. In other words, the control circuitrydetermines whether any query templates correspond to the naturallanguage query. If no search results are found control circuitry 904retrieves a generic response template and process 1200 ends. If at leastone search result is found, process 1200 moves to step 1218, wherecontrol circuitry 904 determines whether multiple search results havebeen found. In other words, the control circuitry determines whethermore thane one query template matches the natural language query. Tocontinue with the example above, at least three templates may match“Show me movies directed by James Cameron.” A query template “Show me <. . . >” may match the natural language query along with “< . . . >directed by < . . . >” and “Show me < . . . > directed by < . . . >.

If control circuitry 904 determines that multiple search results matchthe natural language query, process 1200 moves to step 1220. At step,1220 control circuitry 904 selects a query template with most keywordsmatching the natural language query. For example, the control circuitrymay select a query template that matches most keywords. To continue withthe example above the control circuitry may select “Show me < . . . >directed by < . . . >” template because both “show me” and “directed by”keywords match the template instead of only one keyword matching each ofthe other two templates.

At Step 1222, control circuitry 904 retrieves a plurality of responsetemplates associated with the query template. For example, each querytemplate may have associated response templates stored in a database.The control circuitry may retrieve those templates as part of step 1222.Response templates associated with query template “Show me < . . . >directed by < . . . >” may include just a list of entities, a templatethat generates for display or for audio output “Here is a list of <datafrom the natural language query after the term “Show me” and before theterm “directed by”> directed by <data from the natural language queryafter term “directed by”>.

It is contemplated that the descriptions of FIG. 12 may be used with anyother embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the descriptionsdescribed in relation to the process of FIG. 12 may be done inalternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes of thisdisclosure. For example, control circuitry 904 may submit multiplequeries to the database in parallel, or it may submit multiple queriesto a plurality of similar databases in order to reduce lag and speed theexecution of the process. Furthermore, it should be noted that theprocess of FIG. 12 may be implemented on a combination of appropriatelyconfigured software and hardware, and that any of the devices orequipment discussed in relation to FIGS. 9-10 could be used to implementone or more portions of the process.

When control circuitry determines a query template as part of step 1104of FIG. 11, process 1100 moves to step 1106. At step 1106, controlcircuitry 904 retrieves one or more search results corresponding to thenatural language query. The control circuitry may determine a searchquery based on the query template. To continue with example above, “showme” may be excluded from the search because it is part of the template.So the search string may include terms such as “movie,” “directed,” and“James Cameron.” When the search results are retrieved, the controlcircuitry may extract movie titles from the results or this can be doneby another system before the results reach the control circuitry.

At step 1108, control circuitry 904 selects, based on a selectioncriteria, one or more attributes of a plurality of attributes associatedwith a user. For example, process 1300 of FIG. 13 illustrates onepossible method of selecting the one or more attributes. At step 1302,control circuitry 904 retrieves, from storage (e.g., storage 908), aplurality of attributes associated with a user. It should be noted thatcontrol circuitry 904 may retrieve the attributes associated with theuser from storage located at a remote device. For example, controlcircuitry 904 may retrieve attributes associated with the user frommedia content source 1016 and/or media guidance data source 1018 viacommunications network 1014. Attributes associated with users may bestored in a database on a server and cached locally to a user equipmentdevice as required.

At this point, the control circuitry begins to iterate through all theattributes in order to find an attributes with the highest weight. Atstep 1304, control circuitry 904 moves a pointer to a first attribute ofthe plurality of attributes associated with the user. The controlcircuitry may use the first pointer to initially point at the firstattributes in the plurality of attributes and as the process proceeds topoint at the attribute with the highest weight.

At step 1306, control circuitry 904 moves a second pointer to a nextattribute of the plurality of attributes associated with the user.Initially, the control circuitry uses the second pointer to point to asecond attribute in the plurality of attributes. As the process movesalong, the control circuitry may use the second pointer to iteratethrough all the attributes and then assign the first pointer to thehigher weighted attribute as the iteration progresses.

At this point, the control circuitry retrieves a first pair of weights(associated with the first attribute and the second attribute) to beginthe comparison. Specifically, at step 1308, the control circuitryretrieves a first weight corresponding to the attribute associated withthe first pointer and a second weight corresponding to the attributeassociated with the second pointer. Both the first weight and the secondweight may be retrieved from storage 908. Additionally or alternatively,the weights and the user attributes may be stored remotely from thecontrol circuitry. Specifically, the weights and the user attributes maybe stored at media content source 1016 and/or media guidance data source1018 and may be retrieved via communications network 1014. It should benoted that the weights and user attributes may be stored remotely asdescribed an also cached locally at the device where the controlcircuitry resides.

At step 1310, control circuitry 904 determines whether the first weightis larger than the second weight. If the first weight is larger than thesecond weight then process 1300 moves to step 1306 where the secondpointer is set to the next attribute in the plurality and the processmoves again as described above. However, if the first weight is notlarger than the second weight, then process 1300 moves to step 1312,where control circuitry 904 moves the first pointer to the nextattribute. Thus, after the first iteration, the first pointer alwayspoints to the attribute with the highest weight.

At step 1314, control circuitry 904 determines whether the secondpointer is at the last attribute of the plurality of attributes. If thesecond pointer is not at the last attribute, then process 1300 moves tostep 1306, where the second pointer is moved to the next attribute inthe plurality and process 1300 continues from that point on as describedabove. IF the second pointer is at the last attribute, process 1300moves to step 1316.

At step 1316, control circuitry 904 retrieves the attribute associatedwith the first pointer. As discussed above, process 1300 ensures thatthe first pointer points at the highest weighted attribute after eachiteration of the process. Thus, after all the attributes have beenprocessed, the first pointer will be pointing at the highest weightedattribute as through each step of the process. It should be noted thatin some embodiments multiple pointers may be used to retrieve two,three, or more highest weighted attributes to be used in process 1300.

It is contemplated that the descriptions of FIG. 13 may be used with anyother embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the descriptionsdescribed in relation to the process of FIG. 13 may be done inalternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes of thisdisclosure. Furthermore, it should be noted that the process of FIG. 13may be implemented on a combination of appropriately configured softwareand hardware, and that any of the devices or equipment discussed inrelation to FIGS. 9-10 could be used to implement one or more portionsof the process.

When the control circuitry selects, based on a selection criteria, oneor more attributes of the plurality of attributes associated with theuser, as described in connection with process 1300, process 1100 maycontinue to step 1110. At step 1110, control circuitry 904 identifies,based on the one or more attributes, a response template of a pluralityof response templates previously assigned to the query template. Variousways may be used to make the identification. For example, if the controlcircuitry determines that time of day in the user's location is selectedattribute, the control circuitry may use process 1400 of FIG. 14 toidentify an appropriate response template.

At step 1402, control circuitry 904 determines a time of day in theuser's location. The control circuitry may make the determination byrequesting a time from the network and determining the time zone of thedevice where the control circuitry resides. The control circuitry maydetermine the time zone based on a GPS location, or via a location ofthe closest connection point. Additionally or alternatively, the controlcircuitry may request its time zone from a remote server.

At step 1404, control circuitry 904 determines, based on the time ofday, that the user prefers a shortest response. For example, the userequipment device on which the control circuitry resides may include aprofile associated with the user. The profile may include informationassociated with the user, including length of responses that the userprefers at different times of day. For example, the user may prefershorter responses on weekday mornings because the user is in a hurry toget to work. In the evening, the user may prefer longer (more completed)responses because the user is not in a hurry to go anywhere. Thus, atstep 1404, the control circuitry may have determines that it is aweekday morning, based on the time of day at the user's location, andbased on that determination, that the user prefers a shortest length ofresponse.

At step 1406, control circuitry 908 moves a first pointer to a firstresponse template. The first pointer is initially used to point to thefirst response template, and subsequently to point to the shortestresponse template as process 1400 iterates through each responsetemplate. At step 1408, control circuitry 908 moves a second pointer toa next response template of the plurality of response templates. Thesecond pointer is initially used to point to the second responsetemplate and subsequently iterate through each response template of theplurality in order to compare that response template to the responsetemplate associated with the first pointer (the shortest responsetemplate after each iteration).

It should be noted that both first and second pointers may be pointersto memory locations that store the corresponding response templates.Those response templates may be stored in appropriate data structures.Additionally or alternatively, the response templates may be stored infiles (e.g., XML files) and the pointers may be pointing to specific XMLfiles corresponding to specific response templates. In some embodiments,all response templates may be stored in a single file (e.g., XML file)and each pointer may be pointing to a location within a file thatincludes a specific response template. In some embodiments, the responsetemplates may be stored in a database and the pointers may be pointingto specific database entries. It should further be noted that theresponse templates may be stored in storage (e.g., storage 908) on thesame device where the control circuitry resides. Alternatively oradditionally, the response templates may be stored at media contentsource 1016 and/or media guidance data source 1018 and accessed viacommunications network 1014.

At step 1410, control circuitry 908 determines whether the responsetemplate corresponding to the first pointer is longer than the responsetemplate corresponding to the second pointer. If the response templatecorresponding to the first pointer is not longer (i.e. shorter or thesame length) than the response template corresponding to the secondpointer, then process 1400 moves to step 1408, where the second pointeris moved to the next response template. However if the response templatecorresponding to the second pointer is longer than the response templatecorresponding to the first pointer, then process 1400 moves to step1412, where the first pointer is moved to the next response template. Atstep 1412, control circuitry 908 moves the first pointer to the nextresponse template, again setting the first pointer to the shortestresponse template so far (e.g., after a certain number of iterations).

At step 1414, control circuitry 904 determines whether the secondpointer is at the last response template. If the second pointer is notat the last response template, process 1400 moves to step 1408 where thesecond pointer is moved to the next response template and the processcontinues. However, if the second pointer is at the last responsetemplate, process 1400 moves to step 1416, where control circuitry 908selects the response template corresponding to the first pointer to usein response to the received natural language query. Because the firstpointer points to the shortest response template after each iteration,when all response templates have been process the first pointer willpoint to the shortest response template of the plurality of responsetemplates.

It is contemplated that the descriptions of FIG. 14 may be used with anyother embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the descriptionsdescribed in relation to the process of FIG. 14 may be done inalternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes of thisdisclosure. Furthermore, it should be noted that the process of FIG. 14may be implemented on a combination of appropriately configured softwareand hardware, and that any of the devices or equipment discussed inrelation to FIGS. 9-10 could be used to implement one or more portionsof the process.

When control circuitry 904 identifies, based on the one or moreattributes, a response template of a plurality of response templatespreviously assigned to the query template as described above, controlcircuitry 904 moves to step 1112 of process 1100. At step 1112, controlcircuitry 904 generates a response to the natural language query basedon the identified response template and the retrieved one or more searchresults. For example, as described above, if the natural language queryis: “Who directed Titanic,” and the control circuitry selects time ofday at the user's location as an attribute associated with the user,then the control circuitry may select a response template that is of theshortest length, based on that time of the day. As a result, the controlcircuitry may generate a response “James Cameron” without any otherwords.

In some embodiments, the plurality of attributes associated with theuser includes at least one of: a plurality of characteristics associatedwith the user, a location of the user, a date associated with the user'slocation, and a time of day associated with the user's location. Forexample, control circuitry 904 may select the user's gender as acharacteristic of the user. If the user is a male, then the controlcircuitry may select a response template that delivers a response in afemale voice.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry configured to select, basedon the selection criteria, the one or more attributes of the pluralityof attributes associated with the user may include control circuitryconfigured to determine a weight associated with each attribute of theplurality of attributes associated with the user and identify the one ormore attributes based on the weight associated with each attribute.Determining the one or more attributes based on the weight associatedwith each attribute has been described in connection with FIG. 13 above.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may be further configured toadjust the weight of the attribute in response to the attribute beingused to identify the response template. For example, if the user'spreference for a length of response has been used, then the weight ofthat attribute may be lessened so that the same attribute is notselected all the time. This would make the system more human-like. Itshould be noted that at certain time intervals (e.g., every 1 week) allattributes may be reset.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry configured to generate theresponse to the natural language query based on the identified responsetemplate and the retrieved one or more search results may includecontrol circuitry configured to retrieve the identified attribute, andperform a search based on the identified attribute and the one or moresearch results. Based on the search, the control circuitry may identifyinformation associated with both the identified attribute the one ormore search results and update the response to include the identifiedinformation. For example, the control circuitry may receive a naturallanguage query: “When is Sleepless in Seattle playing next?” The controlcircuitry may retrieve the user's location as the identified attribute.The control circuitry may then determine that the user is near theEmpire State Building. Based on the user's location and the query, thecontrol circuitry may add to the response template: “By the way, did youknow that you are near the Empire State Building?” In another example,the control circuitry may receive a natural language query “Show me aphysics related program that is playing soon.” The control circuitry mayselect a date as an attribute associated with the user. Furthermore, thedate may be Einstein's Birthday. Based on the date and the connection tophysics, the control circuitry may add: “Did you know that today isEinstein's birthday?” to the response template.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry configured to select, basedon the selection criteria, the one or more attributes of the pluralityof attributes associated with the user may include control circuitryconfigured to determine a time of day in the user's location, determine,based on the time of day, a relative length of response that the userprefers at the time of day and add to the one or more attributes therelative length of response that the user prefers. User preferences forthe length of response have been described above in connection with FIG.14.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry configured to identify, basedon the one or more attributes, the response template of the plurality ofresponse templates previously assigned to the query template may includecontrol circuitry configured to select, based on the one or moreattributes, a response template based on the length of response that theuser prefers. User preferences for the length of response have beendescribed above in connection with FIG. 14.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry configured to identify, basedon the one or more attributes, the response template from the pluralityof response templates that have previously been assigned to the querytemplate may include control circuitry configured to retrieve, from adatabase, one or more attributes associated with the response templateand compare the one or more attributes associated with the responsetemplate with the one or more attributes of the plurality of attributesassociated with the user. Based on the comparison, the control circuitrymay identify the response template. For example, each response templatemay be stored in a database with a corresponding set of matching userattributes. Thus, when a specific attribute associated with the user isselected, a response template matching that attribute may be identifiedin the database.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may be further configured todetermine that a plurality of search results corresponds to the naturallanguage query and determine, based on past natural language queriesreceived from the user, that one or more search results are preferableover other search results corresponding to the natural language query.Based on the determining, the control circuitry may be configured togenerate the response to the natural language query based on theidentified response template and the preferred one or more searchresults. For example, if the query is “When is the Terminator beingshown,” the control circuitry may determine that there are fivebroadcasts of “Terminator” scheduled in the next two weeks. However, thecontrol circuitry may determine that the user prefers to know about oneor two broadcasts that will occur closest in time to the user's date andtime. Thus, the control circuitry may generate a response based on theone or two broadcasts and not deliver the times associated with otherbroadcasts. In addition, the control circuitry may determine that“Terminator” is available on demand and may generate a responseindicating the availability.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may be configured to receivea plurality of sample natural language queries and a correspondingplurality of sample responses, where each natural language querycorresponds to one or more sample responses and generate a plurality ofsample query templates based on the plurality of sample natural languagequeries. The control circuitry may then generate one or more responsetemplates for each sample query template based on the one or more sampleresponses corresponding to the associated natural language query. Forexample if the control circuitry receives “Who directed Titanic,” asnatural language query and sample responses “James Cameron directedTitanic,” “Titanic,” and “James Cameron is the director of Titanic,” thecontrol circuitry may create three response templates that may berepresented as <Result><Action><query data>, <Result>, and <Result> is<query data>.

In some embodiments, systems and methods are described to provide for anatural language processing system that automatically generates anintelligent response to a natural language query based on one or moreattributes associated with a device that receives the query.Specifically, the system may be implemented on a user equipment devicethat includes a user input interface. The user input interface may beconfigured to receive the natural language query. For example, the userinput interface may receive the natural language query through amicrophone or a keyboard associated with the user equipment device. Itshould be noted that the user input interface may be configured toreceive the natural language query from any type of input device,including, but not limited to, mechanical motion devices, audio inputdevices, visual input devices, or other suitable input devices.

The user equipment device may also include control circuitry that may beconfigured to process the received natural language query in order togenerate a smart response. Specifically, the control circuitry may beconfigured to receive, from the user input interface the naturallanguage query. For example, the user input interface may receive thenatural language query in one of a number of formats (e.g., visual,audio, textual). The user input interface may upon receipt of thenatural language query process the query and convert the query into aformat that can be further processed by the control circuitry.

In some embodiments control circuitry 904 generates a response to anatural language query as described by process 1500 of FIG. 15. At step1502, the control circuitry receives, from a user input interface, anatural language query. As described above user input interface 910 maybe used to receive the natural language query. For example, a user inputinterface may include a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad,keyboard, touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voicerecognition interface, or another suitable device. The natural languagequery may then be transmitted from the user input interface to controlcircuitry 904 through an I/O path (e.g., I/O path 902).

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may be located on one deviceand a user input interface may be located on another device. Forexample, a user input interface may be located on a user equipmentdevice (e.g., user television equipment 1002, user equipment 1004, orwireless user communications device 1006), but the control circuitrythat processes the query may be located away from the user equipmentdevice (e.g., at media content source 1016, or media guidance datasource 1022). The user equipment device

At step 1504, control circuitry 904 determines which query template of aplurality of query templates corresponds to the natural language query.Process 1200 of FIG. 12 is one illustration of how control circuitry 904may determine which query template of a plurality of query templatescorresponds to the natural language query. Process 1200 of FIG. 12 hasbeen described above.

At step 1506, control circuitry 904 retrieves one or more search resultscorresponding to the natural language query. The control circuitry maydetermine a search query based on the query template. For example, “showme” may be excluded from the search because it is part of the template.So the search string may include terms such as “movie,” “directed,”“James Cameron.” When the search results are retrieved, the controlcircuitry may extract movie titles from the results or this can be doneby another system before the results reach the control circuitry.

At step 1508, control circuitry 904 identifies one or more attributesassociated with a user equipment device. Process 1600 of FIG. 16illustrates one way that control circuitry 904 may identify one or moreattributes associated with the user equipment device.

At step 1602, control circuitry 904 retrieves a list of componentsassociated with a user equipment device. The control circuitry mayperform the retrieval operation in various ways. For example, some userequipment devices execute component inventories in specific timeintervals and store that information in storage (e.g., storage 908). Forthose user equipment devices, the control circuitry may just retrievethe list of components from the appropriate location in the storage.Some user equipment devices do not perform such an inventor, but includean API command to execute an inventory and return the results to therequesting program or thread. For those user equipment devices, thecontrol circuitry may execute the API command and retrieve fro theresults the list of components associated with the user equipmentdevice.

At this point, process 1600 begins to iterate through all the componentsand determine the capabilities of each component (e.g., whether thecomponent has audio output capabilities and/or video outputcapabilities. Specifically, At step 1604, control circuitry 904 moves apoint to a first component in the list of components associated with theuser equipment device. A pointer may be similar to any pointer describedin regards to other processes described above.

At step 1606, control circuitry 908 retrieves a set of capabilitiesassociated with a component corresponding to the pointer. For example,each component in the list of components may also be stored with a setof capabilities for that component. For example, if the component is avideo card, together with name of the component, information such astype of component (e.g., video output component), available resolutions,color information, or other suitable information may be stored and atthis point retrieved by the control circuitry.

At step 1608, the control circuitry determines whether the set ofcapabilities includes a capability to generate an audio response. Forexample, if the component is an audio component (e.g., an audio card, anaudio chip, connected to a speaker), the control circuitry may determinethat the device has a capability to generate an audio response. Thus,process 1600 moves to step 1610, where control circuitry 904 adds thecapability to generate an audio response to a set of attributesassociated with the user equipment device. However, if the componentdoes not have a capability to generate an audio response, process 1600skips step 1610 and goes directly to step 1614.

At step 1614, control circuitry 904 determines whether the set ofcapabilities for the component being processed includes a capability togenerate a visual response. For example, if the component is a videoprocess connected to a display screen (whether the display screen isinternal or external), the control circuitry may determine that thedevice has the capability to generate a visual response and move to step1616. At step 1616, control circuitry 908 adds the capability togenerate a visual response to a set of attributes associated with theuser equipment device. For example, a set of attributes associated withthe user equipment device may be stored in storage 908. The controlcircuitry may be updating the capabilities of the device in the storage.Additionally or alternatively, the capabilities of each user equipmentdevice may be transmitted to a remote server and stored in a database.For example, the capabilities of multiple user equipment devices may bestored and media content source 1016 and/or media guidance data source1018 and accessed via communications network 1014.

At step 1618, the control circuitry determines whether the pointer ispointing to the last component in the list of components associated withthe user equipment device. This step ensures that all components of thesystem are processed and proper system capabilities are detected. If thepointer is pointing to the last component in the list, process 1600ends. At this point, all the components have been process and all thecapabilities of the device have been detected. A message may betransmitted to the system indicating that the process finishedsuccessfully. However, if the pointer is not pointing at the lastcomponent in the list, process 1600 moves to step 1620 where controlcircuitry 904 moves the pointer to the next component in the list ofcomponents associated with the user equipment device, and process 1600moves to step 1606 where the next component is processed.

It is contemplated that the descriptions of FIG. 16 may be used with anyother embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the descriptionsdescribed in relation to the process of FIG. 16 may be done inalternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes of thisdisclosure. Furthermore, it should be noted that the process of FIG. 16may be implemented on a combination of appropriately configured softwareand hardware, and that any of the devices or equipment discussed inrelation to FIGS. 9-10 could be used to implement one or more portionsof the process.

When the control circuitry identifies one or more attributes associatedwith the user equipment device at step 1508 of process 1500, process1500 moves to step 1510. At step 1510, control circuitry 904 selects,based on the one or more attributes, one of a first response templateassociated with an audio-only response to natural language query, asecond response template associated with a visual-only response to thenatural language query, and a third response template associated with anaudio-visual response to the natural language query, where the first,second, and third response templates were previously assigned to thequery template. For example, if the control circuitry has determined atstep 1508 that the user equipment device has the capabilities to outputaudio-visual responses an audio visual response template may beselected. However, if the user equipment device has the capabilities foronly audio output, an audio-only template may be selected.

In some embodiments, the one or more attributes associated with the userequipment device may include a plurality of characteristics associatedwith the user equipment device, a location of the user equipment device,a date associated with the location of the user equipment device, anorientation of the user equipment device, and a time of day associatedwith the user equipment device. For example, if the attribute of theuser equipment device, at the time of the natural language query is thatthe device is set to a silent mode, a visual-only template may be chosenbased on that attribute.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry configured to identify theone or more attributes associated with the user equipment deviceincludes control circuitry configured to retrieve a plurality ofattributes associated with the user equipment device and determine aweight associated with each attribute of the plurality of attributesassociated with the user equipment device. The control circuitry may beconfigured to identify the one or more attributes based on the weightassociated with each attribute of the plurality of attributes. Thedetermination of weight associated with each attribute of the userequipment device may be performed in a similar manner as the weightassociated with each user attribute described above in connection withFIG. 1300.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry configured to identify theone or more attributes associated with the user equipment device mayinclude control circuitry configured to identify an application of theuser equipment device that the user interacted with last and add theapplication to the one or more identified attributes. For example, auser may be jogging and executing a fitness application. Thus, thecontrol circuitry may determine based on the last accessed fitnessapplication that the user may not be looking at a display screenassociated with the device and based on that select an audio-onlyresponse template.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry may be further configured toreceive a generic response template associated with the natural languagequery and determine whether the generic response template may beconverted into at least one of an audio response template, a visualresponse template, and a mixed audio and visual response template. Basedon determining that the generic response template can be converted intothe audio response template, convert the generic response template intothe first response template. Based on determining that the genericresponse template can be converted into the visual response template,convert the generic response template into the second response template.And, based on determining that the generic response template can beconverted into an audio-visual response template, convert the genericresponse template into the third response template. In general manyresponse templates may be converted to audio, visual, and audio-visualresponse templates. However in some cases they cannot.

For example, if the natural language query is “Play me a rock song,” itmay be inefficient to display anything on the screen, but instead justto play the song as the user desires. In those instances, visual andaudio-visual response templates may not be generated for the generictemplate. In another example, if the natural language query is “Show mea photo of my kids,” it may be inefficient to create audio andaudio-visual response templates. Thus, the control circuitry may justcreate a visual response template showing the image requested.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry configured to identify theone or more attributes associated with the user equipment device mayinclude control circuitry configured to determine that the userequipment device is associated with a speaker and a display and based onthe determining, add an indication associated with the speaker and anindication associated with the display to the one or more attributes.The control circuitry may make the determination in similar ways asdescribed above (e.g., in connection with FIG. 16. Once thedetermination is made the control circuitry may store the indications instorage 908 or on a remote server (as described above).

In some embodiments, the control circuitry configured to select, basedon the one or more attributes, one of the first response template, thesecond response template, and the third response template may includecontrol circuitry configured to select the third response template basedon the user equipment device being associated with a speaker and adisplay. As described above, an audio-visual response template may beselected based on a speaker and a display being associated with the userequipment device.

In some embodiments, it may be desirable to override the systemdetermination with the user's preferred output. Specifically, thecontrol circuitry may be further configured to identify a user that isassociated with the natural language query and determine whether theuser prefers to receive one of an audio-only response, a visual-onlyresponse, and an audio-visual response from the user equipment device.Based on the determining, the control circuitry overrides the one ormore attributes with the user's preference for the user equipmentdevice. Process 1700 of FIG. 17 illustrates an example of a process thatmay be used to override the system's determinations with the user'spreference.

At step 1702, control circuitry 904 identifies a user associated with areceived natural language query. The control circuitry may perform theidentification in various ways. For example, if the user speaks thenatural language query into a microphone associated with the device, thecontrol circuitry may identify the user via voice recognition. If theuser uses a keyboard, mouse, and/or touchscreen to input the naturallanguage query, the control circuitry may identify the user via afingerprint identification required to unlock the device. Additionallyor alternatively, the user may be required to login to the userequipment device. Thus, the login information may be used to identifythe user. In some embodiments a camera may be activated and the user maybe identified via face recognition.

At step 1704, control circuitry 904 determines whether the identifieduser has associated preference data. If the identified user does nothave preference data, process 1700 moves to step 1708. When no userpreference data exists, there is nothing to override the system'sdeterminations. However, if the user has associated preference dataprocess 1700 moves to step 1706.

At step 1706, control circuitry 904 retrieves the identified user'spreference data. The preference data may be stored locally on the userequipment device where the control circuitry resides (e.g., in storage908). Additionally or alternatively, the preference data may be storedon a remote server (e.g., at media content source 1016 and/or mediaguidance data source 1018). The preference data in those instances maybe accessed via communications network 1014. It should be noted that thepreference data may be stored both on the user equipment device ormultiple user equipment devices and on the remote server or removeservers. The preference data may be synchronized between all devices.For example, if the user updates his/her preference data on a first userequipment device, the update may be transmitted to a server and thenfrom the server to other user equipment devices that do not have anupdate yet. Each version of the user preference data may have a versionnumber and the version numbers may be incremented when the data isupdated. Thus, when a version number on one device is lower then onanother device, the system may determine that an update is needed. Itshould be noted that the preference data may be updated on one userequipment device from another user equipment device without the need tofirst update the preference data on the server.

At step 1710, control circuitry 904 determines whether the retrieveduser's preference data includes a preference for the user equipmentdevice. If preference data for the user equipment device is not includedthen process moves to step 1716 and ends. Specifically, if there is nopreference data to override the system determinations with, then theprocess may not continue. However, if the control circuitry determinesthat there is preference data included for the user equipment device,process 1700 moves to step 1714.

At step 1714, control circuitry 904 retrieves one or more attributesthat a response template is to be identified based on. The controlcircuitry may retrieve those attributes from storage 908 or from aremote server located at media content source 1016 and/or media guidancedata source 1018. If the one or more attributes are located at a remoteserver, they may be retrieved via communications network 1014. At step1718, control circuitry 908 overrides the one or more attributes withthe user's preference data. For example, if the user preference dataindicates that the user prefers audio-only responses from a specificuser equipment device, the control circuitry may override thepreferences identified by the system with an audio-only preference.

It is contemplated that the descriptions of FIG. 17 may be used with anyother embodiment of this disclosure. In addition, the descriptionsdescribed in relation to the process of FIG. 17 may be done inalternative orders or in parallel to further the purposes of thisdisclosure. Furthermore, it should be noted that the process of FIG. 17may be implemented on a combination of appropriately configured softwareand hardware, and that any of the devices or equipment discussed inrelation to FIGS. 9-10 could be used to implement one or more portionsof the process.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry configured to identify, basedon the one or more attributes, the first response template, the secondresponse template or the third response template may include controlcircuitry configured to select the first response template based on theuser's preference for the user equipment device. As described above, ifthe one or more attributes are overwritten with an audio-only attributebased on a user preference, the control circuitry may select anaudio-only response template.

In some embodiments, the control circuitry configured to identify theone or more attributes associated with the user equipment device mayinclude control circuitry configured to determine an orientation of theuser equipment device and add the orientation of the user equipmentdevice to the one or more attributes. For example, if the user isjogging the user equipment device (e.g., the user's smart phone) is inthe user's pocket, the control circuitry may determine that the smartphone is oriented vertically (i.e., is not laying flat on a surface suchas a table). Thus, the control circuitry may determine that the user maynot have a way to view the display of the smart phone. Thus, the controlcircuitry may add the orientation of the device to the one or moreattributes, and based on that select an audio-only response template.

The above-described embodiments of the present disclosure are presentedfor purposes of illustration and not of limitation, and the presentdisclosure is limited only by the claims that follow. Furthermore, itshould be noted that the features and limitations described in any oneembodiment may be applied to any other embodiment herein, and flowchartsor examples relating to one embodiment may be combined with any otherembodiment in a suitable manner, done in different orders, or done inparallel. In addition, the systems and methods described herein may beperformed in real time. It should also be noted, the systems and/ormethods described above may be applied to, or used in accordance with,other systems and/or methods.

1. A system for generating a response to a natural language query, thesystem comprising: a user input interface of a user equipment device,wherein the user input interface is configured to receive the naturallanguage query; and control circuitry configured to: receive, from theuser input interface, the natural language query; determine which querytemplate of a plurality of query templates corresponds to the naturallanguage query; retrieve one or more search results corresponding to thenatural language query; identify one or more attributes associated withthe user equipment device; select, based on the one or more attributes,one of a first response template associated with an audio-only responseto the natural language query, a second response template associatedwith a visual-only response to the natural language query, and a thirdresponse template associated with an audio-visual response to thenatural language query, wherein the first, second, and third responsetemplates were previously assigned to the natural language querytemplate; and generate the response to the natural language query basedon the selected response template and the retrieved one or more searchresults.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more attributesassociated with the user equipment device comprise: a plurality ofcharacteristics associated with the user equipment device, a location ofthe user equipment device, a date associated with the location of theuser equipment device, an orientation of the user equipment device, anda time of day associated with the user equipment device.
 3. The systemof claim 1, wherein the control circuitry configured to identify the oneor more attributes associated with the user equipment device comprisescontrol circuitry configured to: retrieve a plurality of attributesassociated with the user equipment device; determine a weight associatedwith each attribute of the plurality of attributes associated with theuser equipment device; and identify the one or more attributes based onthe weight associated with each attribute of the plurality ofattributes.
 4. The system of claim 1, wherein the control circuitryconfigured to identify the one or more attributes associated with theuser equipment device comprises control circuitry configured to:identify an application of the user equipment device that the userinteracted with last; and add the application to the one or moreidentified attributes.
 5. The system of claim 1 wherein the controlcircuitry is further configured to: receive a generic response templateassociated with the natural language query; determine whether thegeneric response template may be converted into at least one of an audioresponse template, a visual response template, and a mixed audio andvisual response template; based on determining that the generic responsetemplate can be converted into the audio response template, convert thegeneric response template into the first response template; based ondetermining that the generic response template can be converted into thevisual response template, convert the generic response template into thesecond response template; and based on determining that the genericresponse template can be converted into an audio-visual responsetemplate, convert the generic response template into the third responsetemplate.
 6. The system of claim 1, wherein the control circuitryconfigured to identify the one or more attributes associated with theuser equipment device comprises control circuitry configured to:determine that the user equipment device is associated with a speakerand a display; and based on the determining, add an indicationassociated with the speaker and an indication associated with thedisplay to the one or more attributes.
 7. The system of claim 6, whereinthe control circuitry configured to select, based on the one or moreattributes, one of the first response template, the second responsetemplate, and the third response template comprises control circuitryconfigured to: select the third response template based on the userequipment device being associated with a speaker and a display.
 8. Thesystem of claim 6, wherein the control circuitry is further configuredto: identify, a user that is associated with the natural language query;determine whether the user prefers to receive one of an audio-onlyresponse, a visual-only response, and an audio-visual response from theuser equipment device; and based on the determining, overwrite the oneor more attributes with the user's preference for the user equipmentdevice.
 9. The system of claim 8, wherein the control circuitryconfigured to identify, based on the one or more attributes, the firstresponse template, the second response template or the third responsetemplate comprises control circuitry configured to: select the firstresponse template based on the user's preference for the user equipmentdevice.
 10. The system of claim 1, wherein the control circuitryconfigured to identify the one or more attributes associated with theuser equipment device comprises control circuitry configured to:determine an orientation of the user equipment device; and add theorientation of the user equipment device to the one or more attributes.11. A method for generating a response to a natural language query, themethod comprising: receiving the natural language query; determiningwhich query template of a plurality of query templates corresponds tothe natural language query; retrieving one or more search resultscorresponding to the natural language query; identifying one or moreattributes associated with the user equipment device; selecting, basedon the one or more attributes, one of a first response templateassociated with an audio-only response to the natural language query, asecond response template associated with a visual-only response to thenatural language query, and a third response template associated with anaudio-visual response to the natural language query, wherein the first,second, and third response templates were previously assigned to thenatural language query template; and generating the response to thenatural language query based on the selected response template and theretrieved one or more search results.
 12. The method of claim 11,wherein the one or more attributes associated with the user equipmentdevice comprise: a plurality of characteristics associated with the userequipment device, a location of the user equipment device, a dateassociated with the location of the user equipment device, anorientation of the user equipment device, and a time of day associatedwith the user equipment device.
 13. The method of claim 11, whereinidentifying the one or more attributes associated with the userequipment device comprises: retrieving a plurality of attributesassociated with the user equipment device; determining a weightassociated with each attribute of the plurality of attributes associatedwith the user equipment device; and identifying the one or moreattributes based on the weight associated with each attribute of theplurality of attributes.
 14. The method of claim 11, wherein identifyingthe one or more attributes associated with the user equipment devicecomprises: identifying an application of the user equipment device thatthe user interacted with last; and adding the application to the one ormore identified attributes.
 15. The method of claim 11, furthercomprising: receiving a generic response template associated with thenatural language query; determining whether the generic responsetemplate may be converted into at least one of an audio responsetemplate, a visual response template, and a mixed audio and visualresponse template; based on determining that the generic responsetemplate can be converted into the audio response template, convertingthe generic response template into the first response template; based ondetermining that the generic response template can be converted into thevisual response template, converting the generic response template intothe second response template; and based on determining that the genericresponse template can be converted into an audio-visual responsetemplate, converting the generic response template into the thirdresponse template.
 16. The method of claim 11, wherein identifying theone or more attributes associated with the user equipment devicecomprises: determining that the user equipment device is associated witha speaker and a display; and based on the determining, adding anindication associated with the speaker and an indication associated withthe display to the one or more attributes.
 17. The method of claim 16,wherein selecting, based on the one or more attributes, one of the firstresponse template, the second response template, and the third responsetemplate comprises: selecting the third response template based on theuser equipment device being associated with a speaker and a display. 18.The method of claim 16, further comprising: identifying, a user that isassociated with the natural language query; determining whether the userprefers to receive one of an audio-only response, a visual-onlyresponse, and an audio-visual response from the user equipment device;and based on the determining, overriding the one or more attributes withthe user's preference for the user equipment device.
 19. The method ofclaim 18, wherein identifying, based on the one or more attributes, thefirst response template, the second response template or the thirdresponse template comprises: selecting the first response template basedon the user's preference for the user equipment device.
 20. The methodof claim 11, wherein identifying the one or more attributes associatedwith the user equipment device comprises: determining an orientation ofthe user equipment device; and adding the orientation of the userequipment device to the one or more attributes. 21.-50. (canceled)